Stories of Survival
Deaf Jewish panelists from Budapest talk about the Nazi occupation of Hungary

by Lynne McConnell

Peter Farago had been walking for eight, maybe 10 days. Aching with hunger, cold, and exhaustion, the 10-year-old had followed the other survivors returning home from Germany after the blinding light of the Allies' bombs stopped and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated. His mother had been sent to a different part of Bergen-Belsen, and he did not know where she was or if she was alive. "I had no idea where to go," he said. "I felt so very alone."

Periodically, another group of survivors joined his group, all trying to get home to Hungarian territory after spending months in forced labor brigades and concentration camps. Suddenly, said Farago, AI noticed my mother's back, and I said, `Mom, Mother!' She turned, and my mother just fainted on the spot."

When Farago told this story as part of the panel, "The Deaf  Jewish Community of Budapest," Dr. John Schuchman asked the group to "take a moment." The interpreter, also a survivor, was crying quietly. A few minutes later, the panelists continued telling their stories.

The panel featured four deaf Jewish survivors who had attended the school for deaf Jewish children in Budapest, Hungary, on Mexico Street. Three were graduates and around age 21 when the Nazis moved in; one, Farago, was a boy. The presentation, translated through six signed and spoken languages, was by far the most emotional of the June 21-24 conference "Deaf People in Hitler's Europe."

Some deaf people in Hungary, such as panelist Miklos Klein, initially worked in labor brigades to provide slave labor for the Germans. Eventually, the Germans transported Klein, along with other deaf brigade laborers, to Bergen-Belsen, where most died. Of his group of 12 deaf men, eight survived. Others, like panelist Klara Erdosi, were not allowed to work in factories with relatives because they were deaf. Erdosi survived as a grave digger. All the survivors were marched long distances with little or no food in horrible cold, whipped repeatedly as they marched, and packed 80 to 100 onto train cars without food, water, or sanitation for trips that took days, even weeks. Most of the panelists escaped from several labor brigades and marches to camps before they were taken to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and other concentration camps.

The panel was moderated by Drs. John Schuchman and Donna Ryan, both professors of history at Gallaudet and co-chairs of the conference. Schuchman and Ryan have conducted interviews with many Hungarian deaf Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and are writing a book about the deaf Jewish community in Budapest before, during, and after World War II. Giving the welcome at the panel was Israel Sela, director of the American Joint Distribution Committee (AJD) in Hungary. An Israeli who now works in Budapest, Sela is also an adult child of deaf adults and received his Ph.D. from Gallaudet in 1986.

The Nazi occupation of Hungary began in March 1944 and ended in spring 1945. It was a relatively short time, but one that irreparably changed the lives of all who lived in Hungary at the time. Until then, Hungary, an ally of Germany, was considered to be comparatively safe for Jews. Throughout most of the war, Jews from Slovakia and Germany actually fled to Budapest for safety, said Ryan.

In her introduction to the panel, Ryan stated that 440,000 Jews were forcibly removed from Hungary between March 1944 and May 1945. "Several diplomats tried to save the Jews by getting them special documents," she noted. "The strategy was to save people until the end of the war, which they thought was imminent." People who had these documents formed the `international ghetto' in Budapest, but the German army and the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascist organization that supported Hitler's regime, did not always respect those documents, she explained. "Probably the reason these people are here today is because Hitler came comparatively late to Hungary and Budapest."

For deaf Jews in Hungary, the deaf Jewish school on Mexico Street was more than a place to learn—it was their community, and it became a safe haven from the chaos and cruelty of war. The school's director acquired papers for many deaf students so they could stay at the school, where they were safe from deportation to concentration camps. Unfortunately, the papers were not always honored. During one particular raid, for example, 14 deaf students were taken from the Mexico Street school, and today the school bears a plaque honoring students who were killed during the war.

Farago's mother had taken him out of the Mexico Street school thinking he would be safer with her. But the Nazis raided their village, putting Farago and his mother first into slave labor brigades and later into concentration camps.

Panelist Judit Konig was taken from her home near the synagogue and from neighborhood streets on several occasions and forced to work in labor brigades. On one particular raid, she recalled, "We had to walk with our arms raised over our head all the way. Everything we had on us was stolen. We spent 14 days in semi-prisoner status." She and friends escaped with a woman who had an infant, and faced a long, dangerous trek back to the relative safety of Budapest. AI have to admit we were stealing. Any house we could get in, we'd take what we could—food, anything we could use for diapers. Now that infant is 54 years old."

But Konig's luck ran out. Marched to the Danube River for execution, Konig said, AI was shot three times, three different places on my body." Of the thousand people shot, Konig was one of only three or four to survive. By the end of the war, however, Konig had lost her grandfather, father, brother, fiancé, and countless friends.

Farago also shared several incidents that occurred during the war, times he felt an angel watched over him. One was when the Allies bombed the train tracks so Farago's train was diverted to Austria, and eventually to Bergen-Belsen, where there was little food but death was not as imminent as in its original destination—Auschwitz. After he was separated from his mother, Farago's angel came in the form of Pavel, a blond, hearing boy from Poland who had deaf parents. Pavel, who was about 14 years old, saw the crying, terrified 10-year-old Farago signing and urgently told him, "Don't sign." Pavel stuck by Farago as they worked as slave laborers until the Allies liberated the camp, communicating vital information to him without revealing his deafness to the guards.

Klara Erdosi told of being taken off the street with her hearing sister to a plaza completely filled with Jews. They let her sister go but took Erdosi and others to an island on the Danube River, where they dug ditches. "My friend got a certificate that she was hard of hearing, and they let her go home," she said. Two months later, a friend got Erdosi Swedish protective documents, and she was allowed to go home.  

Sometime later German soldiers came to her home, separated Erdosi and her sister from their parents, and marched them off with other people, including other graduates of the Mexico Street school. This time, Erdosi said she arrived at a "death camp"where the prisoners were forced to sweep outside in January with little clothing. "My sister warned me not to limp because one leg had been frozen." Anyone who limped was shot, she said. The food was sparse and often inedible. Erdosi chose to remain with her sister, who convinced the guards that they both could work. AI said good-bye to my deaf friends. Only after the war did I find out that all of my deaf friends had died."

Both on the long march out of Hungary and in a labor camp near Leipzig, Germany, those who could not control their bowel movements or who collapsed were shot instantly or thrown out in the cold to freeze to death. In the camp, Erdosi was made to dig graves and labeled a "crier." She recalled, "At first there were three of us, then just me. I cried the most, and I was so very cold."

As the Russian army approached, Erdosi and her sister escaped from camp, walking, hiding, and begging food for days as they tried to get back to Budapest. Along the road she saw a man pouring beer. AI showed him that I would like one, and I drank a full glass." But when farmers and townspeople brought food to the starving refugees, they ate ravenously and became so ill that the villagers brought doctors who gave them shots to help them recover.

Interpreter and lifelong friend of the panelists Vilma Dostal was not up to telling her story, so with her permission, Ryan told it. Dostal's family was Christian, and she was its only hearing member. Her family hid a Jewish deaf man's wife and three daughters outside the city until the Russians liberated Budapest. Ryan explained that she had asked Dostal why her family hid these people when the risk to their own survival was so great. Dostal's reply was, "It was natural to help them. Other neighbors wouldn't know they were Jewish. We were all part of the same community. We had to help them."

Near the end of the program, Konig held up the yellow felt star all Jews were forced to wear during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. She also held up pictures of her father, other family members, and of her fiancé—all of whom were marched away never to return—and of her 23-year-old brother, killed just one hour before Auschwitz was liberated.         

When tears overcame Konig, Schuchman brought the session to a close, walking over to put a comforting arm around her shoulders. All present stood in silence as the names of classmates and family members who died during the war scrolled down a projection screen that moments earlier had shown photos of the panelists as children at Budapest's Mexico Street school.

Deaf People Trapped in Hitler's Holocaust